Handmade Holiday 2010 - Yr. 3

We will once again be doing Handmade Holidays at our house...this is our third year. Christmas has evolved over the years in our house and I really like where it is going. Please read tomorrow for a further explanation about how this holiday has become what it is today in our house....

No Crazy Black Friday shopping for us! We just had our first installment of Handmade Holiday this weekend! My in-laws come for Thanksgiving and we also did Birthdays and Christmas all at the same time...it is a Mega Holiday weekend. A bit stressful bringing it all together, but it works out great! We introduced our in-laws to Handmade Holiday this year..it was fun. My older nephew was not really on board, but my younger nephew loved it! The best part is that they participated in it fully!

Here are the Guidelines for our family...just in case your wondering...
1. You must make and give a gift to receive a gift.
2. If your an adult male who is unable to "craft" or "make" anything, you can purchase a handmade item.
3. Santa only brings 3 gifts to each child. (I will explain this in a later post)
Maybe I should have reversed the order of those guidelines...

For my In-laws we changed the rules a bit...
1. You must make a gift to receive a gift
2. Each individual had to make something...rule #1 had to be clarified a bit..
3. We will exchange one "family" gift that could be purchased.
**AND...we added a bit of fun to our event by having a "Tacky Sweater" contest with our gift exchange...**

We also like to throw a hitch or challenge in at our house..we like to attempt to make all gifts from items on hand - recycle or upcycle whenever possible. I have a competitive bunch here...lol.

We had a really good time! It was great to see everyone bring their creativity to the table. My sister-in-law broke the rules a bit by purchasing more than just ONE family gift. She purchased everyONE an individual gift. ...I did NOT.

our projects...hence why my camera got glued to the table. That darn *cancer glue* ate a hole in itself and leaked out onto the table where one of the kids had put my camera down "near" the glue. NOT a happy mama!!

Here are some of the pretties that my family has made! Pictures of all gifts made by each child...

Breeanna made a picture collage for her Grandparents, Duct tape wallets for her cousins, a bird feeder for her uncle and a picture holder for her aunt.

 Lily drew pictures for her uncle and one cousin (the big envelopes hold the pictures), she hand rolled Fimo to make beads and then strung them into bracelets for her aunt and grandmother, and the CD envelope has a few "supplies" for her other cousin who likes to "make stuff" too...

 Jacob made a bud vase for his aunt, a snake sculpture for his one cousin, a turtle paper weight for the other cousin and a jewelry tray for his grandmother. NOT PICTURED is a bird house for his uncle made from a barn we had on our farm.

 My submission the event...Felted sweaters made into hats. These pictures are really bad because they were done at 2:30 in the morning....I used the body of one sweater for both of these hats, and an arm of another sweater for the one below. NOT pictured...two neckwarmers that I crocheted,  one for my sisternlaw and for my mothernlaw

I AM VERY UPSET WITH MYSELF because in our rush to get everything wrapped and given out, I did not get pictures of the boxes that Hayden made for everyone. Using Cigar boxes he made a box to hold his cousins Xbox controller's, a treasure box for his other cousin. A jewelry box for his grandmother and a trinket box for his aunt, and a box to hold keys and change for his uncle. He did an excellent job on each of them.

Our family gift was a basket filled with food from Trader Joe's (they don't have one in NY where my in-laws live) and a cookbook of family favorite recipes with a subscription to Food Network magazine.

Our gifts in return were fleece pillows for the kids (the hand tied style) and a playing card holder for each kid made out of a jeans pocket. (The kids and their NY family love to play card games whenever they are together and apparently there is never a full deck of cards here.....no pun intended!) And homemade cookies and chocolates. Very yummy.... our family gift was "Just Dance 2" for the Wii....HOLY COW! That is funny!!!

FUN and laughter were had by all, I was a proud mama watching my children hand out their handmade wares and the joy that was on the faces of those receiving them made me even more proud!

Hayden won the Tacky Christmas sweater contest - and I won the Tackiest sweater of the night! Good times!!